What about love? (LanaKit)
by Ark Q
Summary: "We don't share the pain, we never have. From the very beginning of our terrible journey we have been far, then close, then far again and now possibly closer than ever. And somehow in this brutal mingling of events our sufferance has recognized a comrade, maybe even a friend. We have been delivered different wounds, we both know it. But they burn in unison." [LanaxKit]
1. Chapter 1

**A/N I'm basically FURIOUS because nobody seems to appreciate this two freaking AMAZING characters as much as I do. Yes, we get it, Violate is the ship of the ships. But these two kick asses, guys. So I had to jot down something, but I wait for you to tell me what kind of mess I've made ;) IMPORTANT NOTE: the scene is set around episode 7, but basically it is not a real scene you find in Asylum, I just needed them to be alone in the same room.**

_*What about love?*_

CHAPTER 1/3 Lana

We are imprisoned in a box of silence. The blood trickled down these bricks is a loud story-teller, it wields both time and space and leaves us with nothing but darkness. We are exiled in an island made of stone. Four walls of coldness, of slowly strengthening exhaustion, of unacceptable memories neither of us are willing to confront. Not here, not tonight.

"What about love then?"

I lift the chin from above my knees and surprise him staring at me. Kit looks pale. Paler, in this dusty light seeping from the door. His voice tastes rusty, his question sounds like the tortured verdict of a long and painful trial inside his own head.

It's hard to explain why we haven't said a word. From the moment they locked us up together till now, not one. There may be three or four feet to divide us but, God knows, they feel like many many more, they feel like a hundred, a thousand, it feels like we got lost in opposite poles of this unnatural universe and, though there's little we gain from keeping that distance, we can't find our way back to each other.

"God left this hell a long time ago." I murmur.

"Not God's love, _human_ love." He sighs, and his eyes fly off. He bends his leg to drop an elbow on the knee and begins to absent-mindedly caress his jaw. "Love between survivors of this goddamn place, love between fallible unreliable beings who can create the most godly thing in the bloody world out of the cruelty, ignorance, hatred, violence."

"Are you talking about Grace?"

"I am asking you a question."

He's far away and I cannot read him. I realize this as soon as I try, fail and keep trying. He's far away and I need to know what seas of thoughts his mind is cutting through, but no matter how quick I march along, I can't keep up with him.

Kit Walker is a language I ignore all the codes of. As simple as that. I misjudged him the first time I met him and now the job of finding the key to solve the mystery of his candidly righteous beauty hasn't got any easier. I wonder how come he is so different. A man, nothing more, I've met plenty before.

Not like him.

"I used to be good at reading people." I find myself thinking aloud.

This makes his eyes fly back to me: "Used to?"

"It's pretty clear I've lost my gift."

"What makes you say that."

"You."

And all of a sudden Kit smiles. Just like that, completely out of blue. It's a weird smile, a dangerous smile, it's a smile that should be banned from here, tinted with such devastatingly bright colours that I'm afraid it's going to escape under the door and blind the entire building. I hardly remember how good it felt to skip a beat just thanks to one little smile.

"Funny how you writers turn out to be the people who less seem to understand words." he says teasingly, while stretching his arm on the left knee and leaving it hang loose.

"Maybe because writing it's not all about words."

"It isn't?"

"No." I confirm. "But I really don't think this is the right place for a literature lesson, Kit."

"I'm a farm boy who hasn't finished high school, Lana." he chortles quietly. "I can't afford to be picky about the place to have my literature lessons."

Now he's making me smile. I won't never know how he manages, but he does. I even chuckle a bit, tilting my head on one side as if he has been suddenly sucked into the shadows and I have no choice but running up and down his profile made of ink with my eyes: "Writing it's about finding a language that doesn't need words to be understood." I explain. "It's about the paradoxical pleasure of building houses, streets and people for people in houses and streets. If you need to look your own emotions up in a dictionary, you are not writing: you're selling. And there is a difference."

"I bet there are not many writers on the market who know this difference."

"They probably wouldn't be on the market if they did."

"My, my. Sounds like a curse, not a writing tip."

"Every artist is cursed." I reply wittily . "It's what keeps us on the edge of reality."

He's nodding, still looking straight into my eyes: "But writing is not about love, is it."

My face gets dark again. It may not be a trap, but it definitely feels like one. "Love itself is not about love, Kit."

"Oh I see, we've moved into the philosophy class now." he sniggers. "I recognize the wallpaper."

"And now I understand why you haven't finished high school." I tease him.

"The worst student in the American school system, oh yeah." he agrees. "Maybe I'm an artist too? After all, I do make pretty cute paperweights."

"It's us." I say slowly. "It's always us. There's no external holy or evil idea we can't rely on to escape from ourselves. God, Satan. And love, even love. No exceptions."

The silence is back.

But it doesn't last long.

"You know, I'm more and more sure I'm gonna read your book when it comes out." he suddenly promises to me, and he does sound honest. "No, wait, not only that: I will be one of the millions and millions adoring fans who wait patiently for hours and hours in one long line just for an autograph."

"You're making me blush."

"That said, miss Winters, you'd better stop hiding."

"Hiding?"

"Why is it so difficult for you to answer my question?"

Because I don't like his question. He must be nicely aware of it at this point, although he really doesn't seem eager to spare me. Stubbornness. A quality we have in common and most probably the reason why there's still air blowing in our lounges.

"There aren't complicated speeches needed here, Lana." His voice has gotten so warm. "I'm only asking you if we'll ever be able to make someone smile just by giving them a kiss. Simple as that."

I've already started shaking by head in firm disapproval, and I know that I won't let my voice crack under the weight of the bitterness that is about to slice my words as well as I know for sure that, in less than twenty seconds – does time still exist in here?- his lips are going to be naked.

The smile will be gone.

"Oh no, my friend, you're asking me more than that." I whisper icily. "You're asking me if what is happening to us prove something about this love you call 'human' and I'm telling you, Kit, that if doesn't, I really don't know what ever will. What about love then?" I repeat, without losing the grip on his silent attention. "You mean getting into a pub, picking the nicest girl in the room, offer her a drink, flirt with her, take her home, have sex, maybe even get married and have kids? If that is your doubt, Kit, let me reassure you: we will have this. All of it. But now let _me_ ask you a question: _will it be enough?_ Will love ever be enough again? What I said before is that we are essential parts of the love we look for, we _are_ the love we look for, and you know this very well. You know it so well that you're asking me the wrong question, because the right one is gonna give you the answer you don't want to hear. You need to be told that these scars don't define who you really are. You need to know that love is something you have no control on because you no longer trust yourself to cherish something so damn beautiful but I'm sorry, I really am, because even though I am sure someone will certainly smile after one of your kisses, I cannot promise that you will too at one of theirs. Things change. People change. We're never going to be who we were before setting foot in this goddamn place as we won't live the same, love the same, kiss the same and God Kit please, stop it, it's breaking my heart…"

"Stop what?..."

"Looking at me like that!" I end up yelling at him in an exasperated pant. "I didn't mean to make you cry."

His hands race to scratch away the tears that have been spouting off the corner of his eyes, he clears his throat, our glances are locked: "Well it's breaking my heart first."

"They said truth hurts."

"Not as much as this."

"This what?"

"You're crying too."

It takes me a moment to find out he's right. Odd. I haven't even noticed it. I hush my tears the same way he has muted his: harshly. Urgently. Privately yet not privately enough for me not to cry a little over his tears and for him not to do the same over mine.

We don't share the pain, we never have. From the very beginning of our terrible journey we have been far, then close, then far again and now possibly closer than ever. And somehow in this brutal mingling of events our sufferance has recognized a comrade, maybe even a friend. We have been delivered different wounds, we both know it. But they burn in unison.

This is the time to play down the all thing: "Well, Kit, I've never been a great lover anyway." I declare, smiling. It is meant to be a joke. "I love success more than I love people."

"I love loving more that I love people, what's your point."

"Yes. I'm aware. With all the love you have, you'll probably come back here the next day you're out and start collecting patients to take home with you and look after until they're strong and happy."

He bursts in an unexpected laugh: "Who am I, Jesus Christ? Come on, I was supposed to be a killer, you're ruining my reputation." His smile lingers over mine. "Yeah, well. Who knows."

"I know."

"And what will you do, Lana? Start a social revolution to set on fire every single church of the country?"

"Close." I confirm. "Probably hide into my literary fame and forget about every important lesson this sickening experience has been teaching me so far."

"My Lord what a heartless monster, you want me to kill you now to spare the world the plague of your filthy existence or…?"

"It's not funny."

"Seeing you clueless in front of your own immeasurable worth as a person is, in fact, hysterical. "

I don't like the way he's scrutinizing every inch of my face. I can almost spot every string of my soul waving back at him.

The strange part is that scanning me doesn't seem enough to appease the frowning on his forehead. "When did this happen, Lana?" he says, quietly. "When did you start believing you weren't worth being truly loved?"

"That's not what I said."

"Yeah but speaking is not all about words, you know."

He seems amused by my silence. He probably thinks I'm stroked by his clever and ironic use of my own words, when my mouth is stitched just because there are ghosts of tears still hunting the depths of his eyes and yet a smile has reappeared on his lips. Not as vivid as the last one, sure.

Way more vivid.

And I'm back wondering how come he is so different.

"I have an idea."

Before I realize it, Kit is crawling towards me and carving out for himself a small space a few inches from my suspicious face. Before I realize it, I'm pulling back.

"Not gonna hurt you." His smile guarantees for him. "Since it seems we have reached an impasse and you _clearly_ cannot answer my question…"

"What? I have just…"

"…I'm afraid we are going to need to make a bet."

Maybe it's the glimmer of naivety and hope pulsing inside the look he's giving me, maybe the warm of the two fingers he uses to distractedly stroke my bare ankle, or maybe it's me, me, who is already showing clear sings of absolute stupidity and obstinate refusal to accept Briarcliff life lessons, nonetheless we are too close for me to ignore the need to trust him.

It looks like we _can_ find our way back to each other, after all.

"I, Kit Walker, bet everything I have –which, unfortunately, by now amounts to approximately nothing…"

"We'll appreciate the good intentions."

"…that I can prove to you, Lana Winters, that love cannot be dashed in an electroshock session or in a shot glass of pills."

I'm unsure whether to laugh at his obstinacy or worry about the blindness of his romanticism. I laugh anyway: it'll be up to him to decide the reason why.

"The only way you could do something like is making a deal with me, mister Walker. But that would require the certainty that we are indeed going to see the sun again."

"But who's got that certainty nowadays?"

"Or perhaps you plan on spying on me the rest of my life to make sure I get my wedding ring." "If only I were a wedding planner."

"Or even match-making, what do you think? To be honest, I can perfectly picture you arranging blind dates for homosexuals, you could even start a new business."

"Lana."

"What."

"I'm going to kiss you."

**A/N [I'll come back to edit all the grammar mistakes]**


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2/3 Kit

**A/N I just hope they're not too much OOC.**

We are imprisoned in a dashboard of secrets. The moon conspiring from outside of the hospital is an unsympathetic executor, it poisons both illusions and hopes and leaves us with nothing but regrets. We are exiled in a shaft made of loneliness. Round walls of mistrust, of rapidly deepening distances, of unstoppable doubts neither of us are ready to quell. Not here, not tonight.

"I'm not gonna touch you."

"I'm not gonna kiss you."

And I know she means it.

One day someone will say I am a lucky man. Anyone would be, if they've held in their arms- if only for a minute, if only for a second of their unflustered existence - the wonderful women I have been drawn into mine. No matter if that wonder got lost along the way, no matter if it got swept away by the revenge of time, they are and forever will be secrets of a mind that has become the treasure chest of irreparable sunny days.

One day I, too, will say what a lucky man I am. Because there's something about love that has always piqued my curiosity and this has made me try, has made me trust. But sometimes I wonder if I love out of curiosity. If I'm chasing the exquisite simplicity of affectionate gazes just in hopes of deciphering the truth behind them, as if somewhere deep inside the suspicion prevailed.

And the army of suspicion, we all know it, is disciple of fear.

"Why, Kit." she's asking me. "Why, among all the ethic dilemmas we have our hands full of, this is the one that should matter the most. Tell me why. "

I can't stop scrutinizing the branches of neon light sketched on the floor, chin down, legs crossed. We are so close I could breathe her breath. So close I can't even pretend to ignore that the cold of our bodies could keep each other warm. This closeness, however, doesn't provide me with the courage to let her peek into my eyes, and it's not easy to say why. Maybe because she's got this unpleasant tendency to make me feel too looked at, too listened to, too cared for. Not to mention her extraordinary ability to make me feel not looked _at all_, not listened at all, like the pesky ghost that medieval castles happened to find now and then wandering in their rooms at past midnight. Her beauty is insidious, her light inaccessible, her strength like an impenetrable Chinese box you can't get you head around.

Truth is that I could complete a twenty page list of reasons why I should not be in love with her.

"Is a life without love worth living for." I finally answer, or ask, depending on the point of view.

"So you're agreeing with me."

"Because I take in consideration the possibility that I'm actually fighting for an existence that isn't even worth the fuss?"

"Now you're just getting cynical."

"I wonder who inspired me."

"Wait, Kit, we can still live. We just...Just do it. On our own. We've been fighting alone, it's nothing we haven't handled before, nothing so shocking to make everything else lose its meaning."

"We've been fighting alone because we expect the light at the end of that bloody tunnel to be shared with somebody else." I reply brusquely.

"Maybe you do."

"You do too."

"Possibly. In the past."

"Oh no." I affirm without a doubt. "Now as well."

"No, Kit."

"Yes."

"No...!"

"You do too, Lana." And this time I speak embracing the full length of her beautiful eyes. I want to let myself get pierced, crushed, chew up whole. "And I'd like to prove it to you. If you let me."

She looks small. Lana Winters may be the only woman I know who can look small despite the enormity of her bravery. She doesn't disappoint me: without even wasting a second, she has immediately started scratching the surface of my vacillating audacity with her eroding stare. Her mouth stays unfolded while she's busy tackling the enigmas inside my words and I do everything I can not to let her read on my face the irresistible impulse to close her lips with mine.

_Not this time, not this woman_, I've kept on repeating again and again to my defiant conscience from the very first moment I saw her on the bleachers in front of the hospital, all dressed up like the archetype of journalism hunger. Not this time, not this woman. Wasn't that difficult, was it?

"So this was the plan from the beginning, uh?" she suddenly exclaims. "Setting a trap."

"A trap?" I find myself smiling in surprise. "Don't wanna compromise my reputation more than I already have, but really, I could never set a trap for a future Nobel prize in literature. You're a freaking dangerous breed. And I'm just boring, easy-minded farm boy."

"Mmh."

The surprise increases. I guess I'm really too old to crush on people I don't have the gut to confront, but apparently this doesn't stop me. I'm spying on her sealed lips wishing she understood what I cannot say.

Meanwhile the silence is back. It's a mourning silence. We mourn untold truths.

"SOS writer at a loss for words: what does it mean, 'mmh'?"

"Nothing."

"You don't like answering questions much, do you." I giggle. "Which somehow makes sense, seen you are a journalist before being a writer. I bet the official equipment for you guys includes a fountain pen, a sloppy note book and a nine-people equip of professional mambo jambo trainers to teach you the art of making important subjects magically evaporate."

I love when I finally succeed in melting her lips into a smile. It's a hard yet gratifying job.

"No, Kit." she admits in a sad, heavy voice. "It's _your_ questions I don't like answering to."

In any another situation but this one, it would be pretty hilarious to fall in love with a gay girl. The perfect excuse for my buddies to snipe at me with a twirl of never-ending jokes about which one of us has hosted more chicks under the sheets. I wouldn't laugh in that world, I'm not laughing in this one. Destiny is a cruel comedian.

And I've tried my best to help her along the way. Like the night of the attempted escape. I still remember vividly my heart skipping a beat when, raising my eyes, I found hers. I still remember the remorse aching inside her voice when she apologized, just apologized, candidly and directly as if no sense of pride could stand between her and the simple truth. I did try to please my own sense of pride and leave her behind. A part of me was craving for that revenge, so I focused on the bruises left all over my body by her conviction I was the enemy, I searched into her eyes for the guilt that would justify the punishment. But I eventually gave in. I couldn't stop myself from thinking that she had done nothing else but protect Grace.

And it hurt to see her hurt. Like just a few hours ago, when laying on the bed of the infirmary with more drugs in veins than my veins could ever swallow, her tired face had materialized in front of me to reassure me of my complete innocence- an innocence that I was seriously starting to doubt- and my first thought was only one, the simplest: had he hurt her? What an unwelcome tear had walked along her cheek when I asked her. I wished so hard for the strength to sit up and hold her, hug her tight into my arms and never, never let her go.

"Am I that good." I pretend to brag. "Well, not gonna lie: I'm feeling honoured by that. And a little scared too, if I have to be honest."

"Trust me, I'm the scared one here." she murmurs.

"I'd ask you why, but you've got such a long history of omitted information…"

"There're no need to ask, Kit. You already know why."

"Nope." I nod, smirking. "I'm _definitely_ not that good."

"Kit." She calls me, hushing my attempts at humour. "If I answered you question you'd be on the electric chair."

…and I prayed, I still do, that the same god who makes us perform among all the other puppets of this malicious show won't decide one day to offer her heaven, because my heaven right now belongs to her. But what's really funny is that only now, when I watch her light darkening at the thought of my future fried on an electric chair, I realize she must have prayed the same, felt the same and tried to help me as much as she could the same way I have.

I wonder how can hell let bloom such a beautiful connection.

When I slowly raise a hand, after the unpredictable defeat of my good old conscience, it haunts me the impression that I'm raising an axe instead. It almost weights like one, stinks like one, speaks like one.

And I steal her cheek.

I can instantly feel her terror crawling up each of my fingers: it's thick, and sharp and burns like acid on the skin. Cell by cell consumed by the devastating awareness of the number of atrocities that face has witnessed, I look for breath remained inside my lunges before I realize I cannot breath air she has run out of first.

So I do the impossible.

I lean in.

Her jaw is shaking in my hand, shaking hard, shaking deep, it's like carrying a declaration of surrender across an infuriating snowstorm, under the relentless assault of raindrops and arrows made of ice, under a fading sunset, a crowded sky, with nothing but faith in the peace that's going to mute that storm once the declaration has been accepted. I long for the peace that my lips could bring to her, if only my hand was firm enough, if only I didn't sink into the pain of the eyes along with that one tear that is now trembling at my touch.

As good as it feels to make her smile, making her cry hurts like fuck.

"So it's official, Miss Winters." I whisper jokily. "You really give some hell of dangerous answers."

Our foreheads our one against the other. I've closed my eyes although the world cannot get any darker. It's dark enough for me to see her clearly, without the heavy make-up or the thirst of blood. She's just a woman in my hand. And if I cannot have her, if I cannot keep on holding her for the rest of my life, my only wish is that I get the chance to teach her how to let herself be loved again.

"Kit."

"Mmh."

So close.

So close.

So close.

"I don't want to bet."

"I know."

"I want to make you promise."

Slowly and reluctantly I pull back to leave enough space for our eyes to meet. Hers are as firm as I've ever seen them. Mine shiver. God, she smells good.

"Promise me that whatever the real answer may be, even if I'm right…"

"So glad conditionals still exist."

"…and your not going to have the love you need..."she swallows fear, her voice stays solid. "_You'll keep on fighting_. No matter what: alone, not alone. No matter if I'm dead or hidden into my stupid celebrity mania, I don't give a rat's ass, you don't quit. Never. Am I clear?"

Her skin tastes sweet on my fingertips.

Her words sweeter.

"You really don't get it, do you." I whisper, softly rubbing a thumb next to her nose. I'm trying not to smile at the confusion that is growing in Lana's expression.

"I already have the love I need."

And it's takes her so long to understand.

"See, love is a little bit like writing. If you need to look your worth up in the eyes of the other, you're not loving: you're selling yourself. But if someone else values your life despite the little meaning you're finding in it, well. That is actually called love, Lana."

"For a boring farm boy you sure know your answers."

I chuckle: "People have this weird tendency to underestimate me. It's a curse."

"I was one of those people."

"I remember."

"I wish you didn't."

"I know." I smile. "See, that's the other weird thing about love."

"What."

I'm not even breathing anymore, just staring into her eyes waiting for her features to get record inside my head. "It writes in ink on your goddamn heart."

And in that moment she is the one doing the impossible.

She leans in.

**A/N [I'll come back to edit all the grammar mistakes]**


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